


Under A Cloud

by JackiLeigh



Category: Supernatural, White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:49:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29596506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackiLeigh/pseuds/JackiLeigh
Summary: Neal reacts to the Supernatural series finale.
Kudos: 6





	Under A Cloud

UNDER A CLOUD

AN: I am incorporating the Supernatural series finale into this story. If I make mention of an event you don’t recall, it is likely from another story in ‘The UNDER Series.’

A lot has changed since I got the news. I lived in Paris for a few years, but I missed New York. So, I came back home. I worked as a paid consultant for the FBI for a few years. But, then Peter Burke had moved up and was no longer a field agent. The whole consultant experience was just not the same.

I paint in my spare time these days. I don’t get into near as many schemes as I used to. Mozzie likes to pull jobs, on occasion. But, for the most part, I’m out of the game. I think Dean Winchester’s death had a great deal to do with that. Sam told me what happened, a couple of years later. He was out of the life, and he had to come to Manhattan to see his in-laws. It was so strange to hear that Dean was gone.

I could see the pain in Sam’s eyes on that first visit. I was so glad to meet his wife, Karen Morris Winchester, and his baby son, John Dean Winchester.

Dean’s namesake just turned 10-years-old this week. Sam and his family make it to New York from time to time. And, I have been to visit him and his family in Austin, Texas. And, as much as I enjoy the visits, there is an undertone of sadness to it all. We all missed Dean, even his namesake.

We never discussed it. But, I am of the belief that Dean never believed he would grow old. He thought he would die, just as he did, on a hunt. I never broached the subject with the brothers. I thought doing so might tempt fate. Plus, I just…I guess that I didn’t really want to know for sure. I didn’t want my suspicions to be proven correct.

Sam tried to spare me the details. But, he did say that he and Dean had a conversation before Dean died. The elder Winchester told Sam that he had not expected to die that day. I find it so sad to know that Dean knew that he was going to die. I often wonder if he felt anything of what was happening to him. Or, did his body just go into survival mode and spare him what had to have been excruciating pain?

Dean’s death changed my mind about criminal life. I knew what I did was dangerous. I knew that every time I left to work a case I might not come back. But, I didn’t dwell on it. Dean’s death made me dwell on it. While white collar crimes are not traditionally violent, there are violent criminals who commit white collar crimes. Matthew Keller was a prime example of that. And, I was beginning to find that there were more Kellers in the white-collar world than there were Cafferys. Guns provide quicker and more permanent solutions than fast talk. I decided that I didn’t want to take that risk any longer. My obligation to the FBI had been up for a few y ears. I like the steady income and the per diem I had negotiated. But, I had begun to develop a strong distaste for the very thing that had brought me so much joy in my youth.

I had met the Winchester brothers quite by accident. But, we quickly developed a friendship. I never quite understood what they did. Well, that is incorrect. I didn’t want to understand what they did. I wanted to keep my ignorance of all those things that they knew, all too well, were true. My journeys into their world terrified me. But, the Winchester were special to me. They were my friends, my brothers, despite all that had been said and reported about them. It was just not true. I never saw that homicidal, murderous, side. And we have been in many situations where such tendencies would likely present themselves.

I showed up on the Burke’s doorstep two days after Sam’s visit. Dean’s death hit me hard. June took it very hard, too. She had come to care a lot for Sam and Dean. She loved it when they visited. And, she always had them stay over whenever they were in the city. She knew things were off when Sam showed up without Dean. Especially when Sam brought his family with him. Neither of us knew about the wife and child, until that moment.

June knew something was up. She waited until they left before she came up to my apartment and asked me what was going on. I didn’t want to tell her, but she deserved to know. They all deserved to know…The Burkes, Diana, Jones. They needed to know of the death of Dean Winchester.

Sam gave us all pieces of Dean’s life. Just small trinkets that would mean nothing to anyone else. But, in our minds, evoked images of someone who meant something to us all. In return, I painted a portrait of Sam and Dean. I didn’t know I was painting it, in return, for anything when I painted it. I had just had the brothers on my mind and painted the portrait. I then put it away, a part of the Caffrey Collection. When Sam presented me with my keepsake, I presented him with the portrait. Sam was very appreciative, saying that no pictures existed of the two of them, as adults. And now, this way, little Dean would know what his grown-up uncle looked like.

Sam gave me something for the Burkes that Dean didn’t’ actually own. But, it would remind them of him, whenever they used it. It was an apple pie candle. Every time that El knew that Sam and Dean would be in town, she would make Dean an apple pie. Dean said that it was one of the best apple pies that he had ever eaten.

The Burkes didn’t take Dean’s death well. El has called me a lot over the years. We’ve talked a great deal about Dean. El loved Peter dearly. But, she didn’t think that he can understand the relationship she had with Dean, and with Sam. She didn’t think that Peter could get past the criminal to see the actual person beneath. She considered Sam and Dean almost as family, like the brothers she never had. 

Peter did understand what the Winchesters were. He understood what they were not, also. I knew that. But he never told El that. I think because he felt if he made the admission, she would see it as him condoning their behavior. I think that that is how he reconciled their relationship. Peter could and did befriend them…to a point. I understand that particular relationship better than El. I had a very similar one with Peter, during our Handler/Consultant years.

El invited me over, just about a week after I had told her and Peter about Dean. I gave them the candle. We had cheeseburger, fries, and apple pie…our own, personal, tribute. Elizabeth Burke really does make an amazing apple pie.

I believe that Peter was equally as affected, though he didn’t show it. He would have been in so much trouble if anyone had known of his association with the Winchesters. Over time, he had come to understand my friendship with Sam and Dean. He understood why I trusted them. I don’t think that Peter will ever forget the first time he met the Winchesters. He had really appreciated their help with the piece of jewelry he had gotten El. He had mentioned it, several times, if only in passing. He marveled at the time they had saved his agents, and El at that event at the local art gallery. He smiled at the gall of both of them to impersonate FBI agents, with so many real ones in the place. And also talked about he time that the Winchesters had interrupted an armed robbery, chasing away the men and saving him and El.

It seems add to say, but I think that Peter felt El was a bit safer when she was with Sam and Dean. He still doesn’t know about the time that Sam spent the night on the floor in the back of El’s shop. Peter ended up taking the sleeping bag back to the store. He pointed out the spot to the clerk. The clerk admitted having no idea of how the spot got there. But, they took the sleeping bag back and refunded their money.

We had had no real intention of keeping the Winchesters’ random, sporadic visits from Peter. But, most of the time, it was just not necessary for him to know. Plus, if he had known, I would be in prison, despite the fact what the brothers were doing was actually helping people. But, it was still illegal. And besides, the objects were returned. Well, most of them were returned. That hands of Ramses thing still really freaks me out.

There are still times, I think I see him. I see his face in the hustle and bustle of a busy New York City street…I look again, and he’s gone. I just, I still find it hard to believe. In all that Sam and Dean had gone through, that Dean would die like that. I still find it hard to believe that he’s gone. It’s like Sam made a mistake, all those years ago, and Dean’s still alive. But, I know that it’s not true. I know it’s not true. And yet, there are days that I wake up, first thing in the morning, and think that it’s all been a bad dream.

THE END


End file.
